The new energy strategy says Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant should stay open as long as it's economically viable.

Credit Jim Richmond

New Hampshire is refocusing its energy policy for the next decade, aiming to prioritize lower costs for consumers and to allow “unaided market competition” for all forms of energy.

In the new 10-year strategy, state officials pledge to make New Hampshire’s energy rates – the third-highest in the Lower 48 states – cheaper for residential and commercial ratepayers.

They say they’ll get there by prioritizing energy efficiency, which they call “the cheapest and cleanest energy resource,” and by creating a more predictable process for building new energy projects, whether traditional or renewable.

The strategy also says New Hampshire should plan to rely on natural gas for the foreseeable future.

And it says New Hampshire should work to keep the Seacoast's Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, which provides more than half the state's energy, open as long as it's economically viable.

"Preserving Seabrook Station as a source of zero-carbon energy is the most realistic and cost-effective means of managing emissions in New Hampshire at scale, " the strategy says.

Officials argue that state policy shouldn't play favorites with energy sources or interfere in the free market. Their strategy suggests other New England states, such as Massachusetts, have done just that with subsidies for renewable energy.

Donald Kreis is charged with representing ratepayers at state agencies like the Public Utilities Commission. He says the new policy is a good shift toward affordability and away from renewable power for its own sake.

“It acknowledges that renewables are definitely a major part of the solution to the energy situation, and it simply calls for keeping ratepayers first,” he says. “As the state’s ratepayer advocate, I have to like that.”

State officials say New Hampshire's legislature must devise specific plans to meet the new goals.

“This strategy provides policy guidance for the near and long term,” says energy program administrator Joe Doiron, whose office wrote the plan. “It will be up to policymakers to implement it.”

In a letter to Gov. Chris Sununu, Pruitt suggests the agency plans to add biomass, including wood and other plant-based fuels, to its “‘all of the above’ energy portfolio.” (Read the full letter below.)

Officials in Massachusetts are still debating the future of a big renewable energy contract for their state.

That’s after their initial pick, Northern Pass, hit a major roadblock in New Hampshire – though the transmission proposal still has support from Gov. Chris Sununu.

The Commonwealth picked Eversource's Northern Pass plan last month for a long-term contract that must start in 2020. That choice was thrown into limbo a week later, when New Hampshire’s Site Evaluation Committee denied the project its final permit.